Rice Hat Encounter
by DazMaZ
Summary: The result of playing four Turf Wars in a row and not winning a single one.


Rice Hat Encounter

Inkopolis: the biggest city in the inkling world built on the largest land mass owned by the Inkling race. Here the many races of the world, including Octoling defectors, gather for opportunity, excitement, or simply a place to live. Whatever the reason for one to be here, Inkopolis was happy to accommodate anyone with friendly faces and a warm welcome.

But the two places that held the most significance to the major population, that of the inklings, was Inkopolis Plaza and Inkopolis Square respectively (more so the Square than the Plaza anyway). Here is where the inkling youth would congregate and mingle with one another as well as go shopping for clothes, food, and other amenities.

However, the one thing that all these stores and restaurants collectively catered to was the biggest sport in the entire world.

Turf War

Many inklings, and more recently octolings, traveled to Inkopolis for the sole purpose of participating in this world renowned sport.

The rules were simple: paint the ground with more of your team's ink and stop the opposing team from doing the same.

It is for this reason why the Ammo Knights Company, the ones responsible for the manufacture and distribution of ink weaponry, had become so financially successful. Other companies also saw it prudent to dip their hands into the cookie jar and brought a slew of gear and clothing for Turf War goers to purchase.

An inkling's need to be "fresh" could be sated by simply walking down the plaza.

Despite all that was there in the Square the most important structure was Deca Tower; from here a squid would be teleported to their next Turf War match.

Truly Inkopolis Square was a place that defined what it meant to be an inkling.

Surly everyone here was having the time of their life.

"AhhHhhHHHH!"

Never mind that.

-XXXX-

"AHHHHH-"the screaming inkling with purple tentacles was swiftly cut off with a slap to the back of the head by another one sporting yellow tentacles.

"Kurutta seriously, it was just one match you don't need to start yelling like a Killer Wail!" the yellow one shouted at his companion. By now several squids were watching the exchange with worry and mild amusement.

The purple one rounded on his discipliner with an enraged expression and promptly shouted in his face, "What do you mean?! That wasn't the only match we had four, FOUR, matches that ended the same way!" By now he was practically foaming at the mouth.

"Oh come on the other three weren't that bad."

"No Brandon, I mean the fact that we're missing two other team members! We keep getting paired up with randoms that keep getting us splatted and costing us the match!"

'And your uncontrollable aggression doesn't help either' the now named Brandon thought to himself.

The yellow Inkling, Brandon, had his tentacles parted to the right with one hanging prominently in front of his ear. His attire consisted of red lace up shoes leading to a black pair of shorts that reached down to his knees. Over his torso was an orange jacket that completely covered his arms up to his hands and his neck. The front of it was embroidered with the common Inkling icon seen on many squid things.

The yellow squid's counterpart had his tentacles slicked back to resemble waves of the ocean and were held back by a grey headband. His caramel brown skin was complimented by a sunflower yellow jacket with grey fur at all edges and white stripes on the arms. Buttons and patches were also attached to both his headband and jacket each with three buttons on his right side and one patch on his left. White shorts with purple lines at the sides reached down his thighs a few inches above his knees. Covering the entirety of his legs was a pair of black skin tight sports pants leading to purple boots up to his calves.

Both of them were wearing their ink tanks on their backs as they had just finished a round of Turf War. Kurutta's heavy splattling was discarded on the floor from his angry rant.

Kurutta then slammed his foot down on top of his splattling and struck an "epic" pose declaring, "I say we play one more match, fifth time's the charm right!?" Despite the challenging smile his eyes were whited out with irritation and a blood vessel bulged on his cheek.

Looking up at the big monitor on Deca Tower, Brandon made note of the next game's venue. "You do know that Moray Towers is in rotation right? You hate Moray Towers," He said as a matter of faculty.

Kurutta whirled on his fellow squid shouting in his face, "I DON"T CARE! I'M GOING TO WIN TODAY!"

Brandon whipped the spittle off his face and rolled his eyes.

Grabbing his weapon off the ground, Kurutta charged into Deca Tower to start his next match with the splattling raised in the air…with one hand. His yellow counterpart just sighed in exasperation and followed, opting to walk instead.

Soon after the two squid kids were teleported to one of the spawners atop one of the Moray Towers with an inkling girl wearing hero replica gear and an octoling dressed in a school house uniform. Both were giving Kurutta an odd look from the hunched over look of rage and determination. Everyone's color was changed to green.

Across the battle field green team could see their enemy who were colored a bright pink.

Brandon couldn't make out any details of their opposition but he swore that one of them looked extremely short.

"Are you squids ready!" called out Pearl's voice over the intercom ignoring the fact that an octoling was present.

"Ready!"

Everybody tensed.

"Set!"

Weapons were raised.

"GOOO!"

At the signal of an air horn both teams sprang into action instantly.

Green team immediately made their way down the ramp covering the floor with their color. Kurutta on the other hand opted to jump straight down into the arena with his heavy splattling revved up. Soon he began to cover a wide area in as short time.

The two teams began to converge on each other while spreading their respective colors where ever they went. The sounds of shooters discharging filled the air, but the loudest noise came from the maniacal laughter of the one Inkling with a heavy splattling and the splattling itself.

"Haa-hahahahaaaa!" Kurutta laughed away as he brought forward his weapon of choice. He had situated himself on a vantage point near the center of the arena. His manic eyes scanned for anyone unfortunate enough to cross into his line of sight.

Brandon passed below his teammate pushing along his splat roller, an annoyed expression graced his face. He stopped just to the right of the heavy weapons squid and called up to him, "You know you're just going to get splatted if you stay there too long…again." Kurutta's main strategy mainly consisted of running head first to the enemy or when that didn't work just shooting everything.

Kurutta stopped his onslaught to look at his team mate. "I know what I'm doing!" he shouted, "They'll come to me where I'll-"

*SPLAT*

His rant was cut off when he suddenly exploded into pink ink from a charger shot.

"And the first splat goes team pink!" announced Marina over the intercom.

Brandon just looked on in indifference before smacking his lips, "Yep." He quickly moved on to the sounds of fighting.

Back at the green team's spawner Kurutta reformed and with a face full of rage turned into his squid form and raced back to the front. By now the two teams had finally reached each other and had started skirmishing.

The irate squid transformed again and brought his splattling forward. An opposing squid had their back to him while they covered the area with pink ink. Taking the opportunity Kurutta immediately began to spin up his weapon and aimed it at his enemy, only to suddenly get splatted once again in a shower of pink.

He respawned once again and blinked. What just happened? Before he could collect his thoughts Brandon appeared next to him looking just as shocked having been splatted as well.

"I just got splatted by nothing," Brandon stated while looking at Kurutta.

Kurutta began making his way back as Brandon followed, "Yeah I got shot in the back just as I was about to get a kill!"

The two split up once more in an attempt to regain lost ground. The heavy weapon's Inkling took the left side looking for other squids to splat.

He ran into the one with a charger when he turned the corner. Smiling viciously he raised his weapon and was splatted again.

He promptly respawned for the third time and was now sporting a face that could only be described as anger with a false smile. Right behind him the two randoms on his team respawned as well in a daze. Something was up, but he simply charged back in with a war cry, only to be sent back moments later.

"Aargh! Dang it!" he cried out in frustration shaking his weapon. Green was losing ground quick and everybody was just flying back to their spawn!

The inkling girl on his team spoke up, "I think they have someone acting as an assassin."

Kurutta spun on his heals to face his team mate. "Are you kidding me!? Who are they, I'm goanna rip his tentacles off!" the now wrathful squid shouted.

The other inkling went ridged and hesitantly responded, "I-I think I saw them with a bamboo hat on!"

Growling like a feral animal Kurutta ran to the edge of their tower and jumped off the edge leaving the terrified inkling back at spawn. Upon landing on the ground he turned into his squid form and darted around looking for this so called assassin.

In his rage he splatted a couple of enemy players that had the misfortune of getting in his way as he searched for this one player.

Making his way to the center of the arena Kurutta ran into Brandon, but on impulse unloaded his splattling in his direction.

"Hey, hey!" Brandon shouted out, "I'm on your side dill weed!"

Kurutta, having run out of ink, stopped. "Oops, sorry!" he called out.

The area was covered in both green and pink ink. Kurutta and Brandon were separated by a big span of pink between them.

"What are you even doing anyway?"

"I'm looking for that squid that's been splattling us all match! I think he's wearing a bamboo hat!"

"I saw someone with a bamboo hat around here before I turned the corner. Maybe he's still here!"

"He better be! I'm getting tired of being splatted every five seconds."

"Yeah well look at it like thi-"

*SPLAT*

And suddenly Brandon exploded in a shower of pink.

"Holy sweet mother of-"Kurutta shouted in alarm. He looked around franticly until he saw a light blue bamboo hat disappear into the pink ink along with the inkling wearing it.

"Oh no you don't!" he shouted bringing his weapon of choice forward.

Only to hear a click.

"Ehh?"

He had forgotten to refill his tank after shooting at Brandon, tragic.

*Plop*

Kurutta looked ahead to see the inkling he had been hunting with their head bowed obscuring his face and waving. He then down at his feet to see a splat bomb lying peacefully next to him.

A moment and a twitch in his eye pass, "Oh in-!"

*SPLASH!*

A wave of pink covered the area that Kurutta had once occupied.

Then, over the intercom, an air horn blared signaling the end of the match.

"GAME! Everyone stop shooting!" commanded Pearl's voice.

At the Square, the big screen TV on Deca Tower displayed the two judge cats readying to declare the winners. What resulted was Lil' Judd holding up a pink flag declaring the winners while Judd fell to the floor with a green flag of the losers. This was the fifth in a row where he placed his bets on the wrong team.

It was a wonder why.

-XXXX-

The two teams exited the Deca Tower teleporter with the members of pink coming out first and green coming out not soon after. Despite their loss the inkling and the octoling were in high spirits about the whole thing and even chatting with three members of the pink team. The last two Inklings to exit were not is such a gracious mood.

"Look Kuru it's just-"Brandon began before getting cut off.

"DON'T! Just don't," was the purple inkling's harried reply.

A moment of silence between the two passed before Kurutta threw his splattling on the ground and yelled out in rage scaring a few other squids nearby and almost made an octoling drop her food.

The purple squid began to rant, "We were doing so well before that no good, worthless, annoying, weakdsdsgfhdask!" his words devolved into incoherent noises as many people saw foam spilling from his mouth.

Brandon on the other hand only watched as his friend had a mental breakdown in the middle of one of the most populated places of Inkopolis.

Truth be told the match wasn't all that bad; the teams were pretty evenly matched before that one inkling showed up out of nowhere. Assassins were not a common sight due to the insane amount of focus you'd need and the physical requirements needed to keep up with the role. Whoever this one was they were experienced.

Shaking his head, Brandon dispelled those thoughts and looked to stop his friend from eating someone but was suddenly struck by a feeling of dread. He looked to his left and saw a very familiar light blue bamboo hat facing toward him. And underneath its shadow was an inkling, head bowed and hands politely crossed over their lap. The aura he was feeling was the same he felt during the match right before getting splatted.

Kurutta, in confusion at the sight of his partner, fallowed Brandon's gaze and looked over to whatever he was staring at. Low-and-behold, sitting on a bench across the walk way was the object of his ire. At least he assumed so; they were wearing a bamboo hat after all so it was probably him.

The purple inkling marched right over to the sitting figure, forgetting his heavy splattling on the ground, and, with all the grace of a crashing airliner, immediately started yelling at the inkling.

"Hey you!" he began, "You got some nerve focusing on me the whole game like that! What's your problem just targeting players like that; you're supposed to cover turf with your ink not just save it for us!"

"But you would have done the same thing given the chance," Brandon stated behind Kurutta. He went ignored.

"Come on speak you little sushi role!"

The inkling on the bench said nothing. In fact they didn't even react to the purple squid's yelling at all.

Kurutta growled, but just before he was about to slap the offender upside the head he noticed their slow rhythmic breathing.

It was almost as if he was, "Asleep," came the deadpan of Brandon's voice, "He's asleep. It hasn't even been five minutes and their asleep."

The purple inkling just stared, his face unreadable. Then he grabbed the inkling's face with his hand and tilted his head up.

Brandon reacted instantly by punching Kurutta in the face, "You don't just grab sleeping people's faces!"

"I wanted to see what he looked like!" yelled the response from the ground.

Despite the continued screaming and facial assault the inkling was still lightly snoring away.

They were a young inkling boy with faded pink tentacles tided back to the left. The expression on his face was one of peace and contentment as a snot bubble inflated and deflated along with his steady breathing. The shade from his large bamboo hat guarded his face from the sun while the big blue scarf around his neck looked like it was not only keeping his head steady but also acted as a cushion. His torso was covered in a jacket a lighter blue than his hat with ties instead of buttons keeping it secure. It looked a little too big on him as his hands almost disappeared in the wide sleeves. Around his waist was a pink sash that covered the bottom of his jacket and the top of his pants. Likewise, his pants were large and roomy looking, dyed a dark grey, lacked pockets, and reached half way down to his calves. Upon his feet were what looked to be a pair of custom Famitsu brand socks and sandals. Honestly they looked like someone took two foot sized pieces of polished wood and stuck two smaller blocks at the bottom of each.

Overall the best word to describe his appearance would be "traditional", and for girls: cute.

Sitting on the bench to his left was a Kensa Splatershot Jr. and his ink tank.

Getting from off the ground Kurutta and Brandon continued their shouting match at one another debating what was and wasn't ethical treatment of a strangers face. However, they both stopped when they noticed that the inkling on the bench began to stretch awake from his slumber completely oblivious to the argument a foot in front of him.

After his stretch he whipped his eyes, removing any semblance of sleep away. He then "looked" at the two inklings about to beat each other in front of him. His eyes never opened.

"Oh hello," he greeted in a small voice, "Can I help you two?"

The two friends stared at him, leaned forward will foreheads pressed against each other from their forgotten argument.

Silence permeated the air. "I'm not interrupting anything am I?" the bamboo hat wearing squid asked innocently.

-XXXX-

Thinking that he had rudely interrupted an intelligent argument between two friends the squid, who's called himself Kiyoshi, opted to take them out for lunch at his favorite noodle shop. Of course the two squids he was treating didn't tell him that they were arguing about how to waking him up, they just decided to just ride this out and get some free food out of it.

They went over to a noodle bar called "Ika no Men" which was run by a Jellyfish bizarrely named Ika.

After receiving their food and taking a table for themselves outside the three dug into their bowls of noodles.

*Slurp*

Kiyoshi made no effort to hide his love for the Jellyfish's cooking as he downed his bowl full of noodles with gusto. Kurutta and Brandon, sitting opposite of Kiyoshi, were still understandably confused. Well more so Brandon as Kurutta's gaze was hard on the small squid facing them. The purple squid had a question that was nagging him ever since the pink inkling got up from that bench he was sitting on.

So with all the grace of a sinking ship after hitting an iceberg he narrowed his eyes and asked, "Why are you so short?"

He was promptly smacked in the back of the head and landed face first into his bowl, courtesy of Brandon.

"Don't ask so bluntly!" he yelled.

Kiyoshi looked at the two with his closed eyes impassively holding his noodle bowl as he stopped mid way from sucking up noodles into his mouth. Then he shrugged and continued eating.

Brandon decided to break the silence, "Forgive my partner he has no sense of courtesy when he asks questions. But I will admit I was surprised to see how short you are. Heck, you're shorter than Kurutta and he's 4'9"." He jabbed a thumb in his companion's direction, who had gotten up to grab some napkins to clean himself.

".5!" he shouted, really hammering home the half an inch he was so proud of.

The two ignored him and continued their conversation. "I get that a lot," Kiyoshi stated "My parents thought I had some kind of genetic deficiency when I was around twelve so they took me to the doctors just to be sure. *slurp* Turns out I'm just small."

And small he was; as the top half of his chest met the edge of the table.

Kurutta had returned to the table by this time, having wiped his face clean of soup broth and noodles, and continued to eat his desecrated food. "So. How long have you been playin' in Turf Wars? Because I want to punch your little face in," he asked-threatened not bothering to hide his contempt.

Brandon just sighed in defeat.

Kiyoshi ignored the last bit of his question, answering with, "Hmm, I don't know exactly but probably around two years now. I started when I was fourteen."

A thoughtful look crossed Brandon's face," If you stared two years ago then…wait what's your rank?"

"A+, why?"

The purple inkling spat out the noodles in his mouth having heard what he said Brandon was also shocked leaving his mouth agape.

"A+!? THAT'S A LOAD OF SEAHORSE CRAP!" Kurutta shouted in outrage, "We've been busting our butts off for way longer and you're and A+?!"

'That explains why he seemed to be everywhere at once. And why he was so good,' Brandon thought to himself.

Kiyoshi shrugged again and responded, "Well I haven't had much to do in Inkopolis so I kinda just did Turf Wars for two years."

"What do you mean you don't have much to do here? It's Inkopolis, literally the center of squid society." Brandon asked ignoring his partner's rants about how it was all unfair and that the tiny assassin should feel bad.

"Oh, my family lives in the countryside, we don't spend much time in the cities. In fact I'm the only member that's been in Inkopolis in ten years."

Kurutta paused his rant somewhere around how he'd be on top in like three months and turned his attention to Kiyoshi. "Wait ten years? Why has it been ten years sense anyone in your family's been in Inkopolis?"

Kiyoshi shrugged once more and said, "We're kinda traditionalists, so we tend to stay away from the noise of city life."

"Yeah but why are you so good at it?"

"My mom always says that if you're stuck doing one thing then you might as well be good at it."

"Geeze, you really took that to heart didn't you? You practically teleported across the area last match."

The small inkling blushed lightly at the praise and scratched the back of his head nervously. "W-well thank you. I spent the better part of two years here so I'd hope I'm getting good at it."

The three then sat in silence baring the slurping of noodles from Kiyoshi. The two opposite of him just stared as if they were waiting for him to say something else.

Brandon broke the ice. "So, you goanna say that 'we weren't too bad our selves' or something of the like? Isn't that how these things go?" he asked hopefully.

Kiyoshi looked at the two for a moment as noodles hung from his mouth like he hadn't expected the question. Realization then crossed his mind and he swallowed the food in his mouth.

"Oh no, you guys are some of the worst coordinated team mates I've seen in a while. The other inkling and that octoling had better coordination that you two did," the pink squid stated without remorse or hesitation.

Kurutta, naturally, was not amused. "Yeah well…who asked you?!" he shouted defensively. He then turned away from the inkling across from him and angrily ate his noodles as he brooded with a storm cloud over his head.

Brandon was surprised by the bluntness of the criticism and muttered under his breath, "We're not that bad."

"Well you two did go off to do your own thing without even talking to your other team mates."

Both looked at Kiyoshi before averting their eyes elsewhere.

"Look we don't work well with people we don't know," Brandon explained, "We'd rather be playing with someone we can actually work with than guess on how a squid would act."

"Well why don't you find someone then?"

"We don't know anyone else in town," Kurutta responded.

Kiyoshi's smile brightened to lethal degrees of cuteness, "You guys know me! Why don't I join your team?"

That caught the two squids off guard as Kurutta began to chock on the noodles he had in his mouth leaving Brandon to respond. "I-well it's just-. Um why would you, y-ya know, offer to work with us I mean we're still C ranked players," he stammered out gesturing to himself and his purple friend.

Kiyoshi shrugged. "I don't know, just sounded like a fun idea," he smiled widely showing his fangs, "Besides, you guys are fun to be around."

Kurutta and Brandon looked at each other in confusion. Was this really happening? If they said yes then they could have a very skilled player on their team and that you mean one less random player.

They literally had no reason to say no.

"Sure," they both said simultaneously.

Kiyoshi's smile somehow got brighter, "Cool…you guys wana play a match?"

Now it was their turn to smile. Maybe they could win a round today after all.

-One game later-

"HOW COULD WE LOSE!?" Kurutta yelled to the heavens whilst on his knees.

Brandon wasn't much better as he fell to the ground with a storm cloud over his head, "A new team member who knows what he's doing and we still lose so horribly."

Kiyoshi stood behind them with a finger on his chin as a sweat drop fell down the back of his head, "We're going to need some serious training."

-FIN-

* * *

**Just a small project me and a couple of friends have been working on. **

**Don't worry these dorks will be back.**


End file.
